Peripheral Park
by TheBlackLipstick
Summary: They feast on light and drain energy. They suck the water from your bodies. They are tree people. Amy, Rory and The Doctor are stranded in the dark world of an endless wood. They're only hope of a way out is the path of mirrors left by a  time traveller.
1. Chapter 1: Dark Forest, Old Eyes

Peripheral Park.

**Chapter 1**

**Dark Forest, Old Eyes. **

'Doctor, where are we?' asked Amy as the time lord peered out of the doors. 'Ermm..' came the reply. It was black outside the TARDIS, black with no stars. 'Ermm', he said again, 'We could have been sucked into the never-ending void and lost foreve-' 'WHAT!' shouted Rory and Amy at the same time. 'No wait,' said The Doctor, 'there appears to be a floor.' Amy sighed with relief, 'Thats good news' she said. 'Oh no...' murmured the time lord as he turned around, 'on the contrary, this is worse than a void.' 'Why is it always worse?' groaned Rory, 'So where are we then?'

The Doctor scraped his hair back from his face 'This is Peripheral Park.' 'O YAY! A park!' 'No, Rory, this is not the sort of park one would like to go for a walk in, we have to get out of here.' Rory and Amy went to the door and opened it, 'Is it night time here, Doctor?' Rory asked, 'Do you see any stars?' Amy answered, gazing up into the black upness, if it was a sky.

The Doctor went back to one of the control panels and turned the engine on. The core lit up blue for a few seconds and then went dark. 'I'm sorry' he said 'We're stranded.'

For awhile they sat on the ground outside the TARDIS. Amy sniffed 'So what is this place then?'

'I told you its a park'

'If its just a park why are there no stars?'

'The trees here, they eat light'

'So do all trees dont they? They soak it up and turn it into food' said Rory.

'These eat whole stars' said The Doctor.

'Do any people live here?' asked Amy.

'Trees do'

'Its very hard ground'

'There isn't much water here'

'Doctor will you stop it!'

'Sorry.'

'What is this place?'

'Did u ever read about wood nymphs when you were little? Tree people maybe?'

'Yes'

'Well, they're quite near us. And they're getting clos-'

Suddenly, a light appeared. It didnt appear everywhere, tall shapes blocked its way, trees, Amy thought. The Doctor rose and stumbled away up what now was shown to be a wooded slope. Amy blundered up the hill after him, calling 'Doctor?' 'What do you mean?'

Rory staggered after her 'Amy!' 'Whats up there?'

They were at the head of a path, a path that ran down through the trees eastwards. On leaning against the trees nearest the path, were mirrors. Mirrors that bounced the light from one the other all the way to where The Doctor and Amy, and presently, Rory were standing. But they were not alone. Not far from the nearest mirror to them, someone was standing, their back facing them. Their skin was a patchwork of sour orange-black rotteness to the soft yellow of heartwood. Their hair was a long tousel of dead ivy, some of which lay in the trail behind. As it turned, as slowly if it was pulling all its roots with it, they could see its face was like a human's but carved out of wood. But the wood was rotten, blotched where the thin dark brown layer had flaked, to reveal pale grainy courseness. The eyes were like knots in the grain and the mouth was a just a crack. It peered at them through its dark eye holes. More faces like it were appearing it, or though in actual fact they were very different. 'What are they, Doctor?' 'They're thirsty, I think...'

the creatures were now walking towards them, bark falling off them..

'RUN!' shouted the Doctor.

Amy and Rory ran to the top of the hill and looked back. The Doctor was not with them. From the darkness ahead figures flitted softly from one beam to another. Some just stood there, in the light, drinking it in. The light here was fading. Amy felt something touch her arm. She spun around, like being touched by a branch, the dry cracked fingers of one of the nymphs reached out and grabbed her arm. She tried to pull away but her arm began to burn. She saw her arm crack and dry and the creature's become more green and lithe. Moss spread like a carpet and draped around its arms. The heart shaped ivy leaves grew in the long tangelings of its hair.

Amy screamed and Rory pulled her away. The thing's long root fingers slipped and it stared at them. The mad black curiosity of its eyes drew Amy, pulling her in. She felt as if she was trapped in the dark earth, roots held her, she couldn't move! The eyes seemed old. Very old. They held an expression she had seen in The Doctors eyes sometimes, an expression he would often endeavour to hide.


	2. Chapter 2: The Path and The Mirrors

**Chapter 2**

**The Path and The Mirrors. **

It wasn't that the eyes pulled her in. They crept silently into her head filling it with a darkness. Time seemed to gather around the creature in a black fog. It looked down at her, with a knowing, wisdom maybe, but also contempt. Its will seemed to crush all of her self-will and independent thought.

Something yanked at her arm. She felt numb. She stumbled backwards, breaking the gaze. The wood was visible and so was Rory. He was shouting something, but she couldn't hear. He was pulling her away, down the path of mirrors. The faces of the tree people turned to stare at them, they had been standing with their heads lolling and their eyes closed, as if they were asleep standing up. She tried to speak, but then she saw her arm. From her hand to just below her elbow was red and flaking, as if it had been burnt.

Then, _pop!, _and sound opened out. It is only when you have been deaf for a time that you realise the smaller sounds afterwards. The trees murmured. The crunch of their feet on the path seemed as loud as a thunder-crack. The dryads were talking. In their own soft, peaceful, unchanging voices that spoke of something far off and long ago. As they ran, Amy caught a glimpse of the mirrors. They were very ornate in a Rococo style, cherubs and gold and silver trumpets. But wild grass had grown up and over them. The mirrors had been reflecting the light through the woods, far far into the distance. Amy looked out, down into the wood, but she couldn't see an end to the trail. They ran round a corner, and the wood changed. The trees were leafless, fallen or just stumps. The dryads were lying the grass, as if asleep. But grass had grown over them, and they were half-buried in the earth. It would have been completely pitch black if not for the ghostly reflection-light.

In front of them, a little way ahead, was The Doctor, peering over one of the mirrors. He had a piece of paper in his hand.

'Where have you been?' demanded Rory.

'Don't go wandering off!'

'Doctor, what's going on?'

The Doctor sighed.

'This place is infinitely big. Its impossible to get into and out on purpose. It just pops up in random places. The dryads here eat the light, and the water, and the energy. When you loose sight of something, its very likely you'll lose it altogether because the expanse of the wood is huge. We're not likely to see the TARDIS again. The only reason the light from the mirrors isn't going out is because its being reflected from outside the wood.'

'So... we could get out by following the path?'

'Not necessarily. If the wood goes on forever so could the path.'

'What about the mirrors. The cherubs. They're earth mirrors aren't they, Doctor, what are they doing here?'

'I don't know, surprisingly I don't know everything. Someone else must have come before us. Left them here.'

'Which means the path has an end?'

'Well of course, they would have run out of mirrors eventually.'

'Well then!'

'Just because the path ends doesn't mean the wood does.'

'So where's the light coming from?'

'Ah, glad you asked, dryads can't live on light alone they need water. There must a river somewhere around here where the water surface reflects the light.'

'What light source would be reflected in the river though?'

'There are no dryads left here they all probably dies of light deprovatation. There may be a light source that the person who came here before here left. If it was fire it could still be burning, what with all this dry wood about.'

'Oh'.

'POND! what happened to your arm? Don't touch the dryads!'

'Will it be alright, Doctor?'

'Yes, yes, you're going to be fine, Pond.' He said absent-mindedly. She wasn't, but there must be water soon.

The Doctor wandered off sulkily among the dead tree trunks. Irritably he kicked a stone off the path, 'LOVELY PLACE!' He shouted angrily at the space where the sky should be. The sound echoed dully through unseen valleys and ravines. Suddenly he noticed turned around and saw, a signpost?


	3. Chapter 3: The Missing Mirror

**Chapter 3**

**The Missing Mirror**

The Doctor, still staring, took the sonic screwdriver from his pocket. He glanced up quickly, to make sure he was still within sight of the path, and subsequently to Rory and Amy. He could see them now, the happy couple.

Amy sat down hard on a log and began hitting the heels on her boots against a sharp edge boulder.

'What _are_ you doing?' asked Rory quizzically.

'We may be here for a long time, I dont want to be walking round, foraging in four and a half inch heeled cowboy boots.' She grunted and heaved at the zip. 'O great, its stuck!' Amy yanked the boot heel, 'Rory, give us a hand!'

And so, Rory tugged at the end of her boot, bracing himself first against the boulder, and then the log, and then both. Suddenly, the boot came off and, unluckily, as a parting gesture, the four and a half an inch heel hit Rory in the most unfortunate area of his face. The cry that followed would have shaken the most mighty tree's roots.

Rory cradled his injured nose, and 'O Rory! are you alright?' came from just behind the trees.

And it was his fault they were trapped. In Peripheral Park. The random anomaly that just appeared, anywhere in the universe and sucked any luckless ship or moon or planet in that was close enough. To get lost in the wood forever, or to be sucked dry by bark-zombies. And Amy's arm. They needed water.

He looked at the signpost again. It was from a street. On Earth, in either England or America by the language. Then he saw the coat of arms. England then. Up at the top it read: _ Marshfield County Council _and underneath in large writing:

_Doctor's Street_

_Leading to Path's End_

He took out the rubbing he had made of the mirror's edge. Among the old cracked cherubs and flowers, gold paint now flaking, there was a small, almost completely rubbed away imprint. It was of a devil's fork, three arrowhead points set on a slender line in the mirror. He squinted-

'Doctor!' exclaimed Rory, 'They're, umm, here'.

The Doctor looked behind him to see a gnarled oaken face, twisted with age and drought. He quickly scrunched the paper into his pocket. The dryad reached out a hand tentatively, and looked at him questioningly. The Doctor step back, looked behind him quickly and then ran. On the path, the tree people moved close. They didn't move like the zombies that any movie had ever depicted. They didn't move in a swarm and make groaning noises. They melted into the trees, and Amy thought she wouldn't notice them until they were right next to her. They crept out from the sides of the path.

'Errm, Rory, look behind you, are there any more on the path?' Amy asked shakily. Her arm was stinging horribly.

'Err,' Rory craned his neck, stepping backwards at the same time, 'No.'

'Run then!' exclaimed Amy and bolted.

The other two ran after, down the path of mirrors and up a slope where the path twisted and writhed through the trees like a cat playing with a ball, and through the dead forest.

Then abruptly, just up ahead, the light disappeared. The path went on, but there was no more light.

'The mirrors!' shouted The Doctor. He ran to the foot of a tree, there were mirrors all the way apart from.. here. The mirror was gone. 'Where is it?' cried The Doctor, 'You two, help me look!'

Amy peered into the dark forest. She crept behind the first few trees and hunted around in the grass, groping with her hands. Then suddenly, without warning, her arm began to burn with low horrible sting. She cried out, and then looked up into the face of a dryad.


	4. Chapter 4: A Devilish Fork

**Chapter 4**

**A Devilish Fork. **

But it wasn't looking at her. It was staring with its hands on the mirror, looking deep into the eyes of its own reflection. Amy scrambled up hastily, but the creature wasn't looking at her, it was looking at its reflection. The mirror shone faintly in this inky, sombre forest, framed by the black jagged fingers of the dryad. It slowly turned its head up, as it gaze passed over Amy's own reflection, and the looking glass slipped from its strange, ragged fingers and fell into the long grass. Amy glanced to her right, and noticed a long beam of gilded light in between to tree stumps. Maybe the light would stop it. Slowly she picked up the mirror and, keeping her eyes on the dryad, she walked her feet towards it and stopped when she felt the warmth on the back of her legs. The dryad had rustled threw the dry grass after her. 'Rory!' she shouted as the thing grew closer.

Back on the road, The Doctor was staring at the darkness ahead. Cautiously, he stuck out a hand waved his hand around in it. It shifted like black wreaths of cloud around his fingers, and when he pulled his hand back, it carried on shifting and swarming. Its like soup, he thought to himself. Then he realised he'd said this out-loud.

'Mm soup', said Rory, 'What I'd do for some leek and potato right now.'

'Try not to think about it, it'll only make you hungrier.'

'Hey, that reminds me, what do we, like, eat here?'

'What we really need to find is wate-'

'Rory!' came Amy's voice from the thicket.

'Amy!' cried Rory, and bolted after her.

'DON'T GO WANDERING-', The Doctor trailed off. He sighed and jumped down off the road.

Rory, and at length The Doctor (he kept stopping to sonic things), found Amy with her mouth open staring at the dryad. It was kneeling in the pool of light, its arms outstretched to the mirror on the forest floor. It turned from decaying red, to the rottenness of flesh-coloured sand, to pale green, to smaragdine. Glossy leaves grew up in the dry, pale remains of its ivy-hair. Its eyes filled up with the golden light of the mirrors. It stared up at The Doctor. it whispered. Many more faces were appearing in the dark wood.

'They've found us, c'mon!' Rory tugged Amy back as The Doctor stared transfixed at the strange wood creature. 'Hmm?' he murmured, and then he saw the approaching dryads, 'O YES! run right!' and turned to see that Amy and Rory were already half way down the path and rearranging the mirrors.

The dryad grabbed his hand with the ferocious strength of living wood, as strong as iron and more flexible. Pure green and barkless, but new bark was quickly growing underneath the old rotten skin.

'AH!' yowled The Doctor as if he had been stung and yanked at his arm. Then he noticed something. On the back of the creature's hand, burnt into the heartwood, there was a marking shaped like a devil's fork. 'Sonic... branding' he hissed and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. At the sight of it, the dryad let go of his arm and pulled back with a defensive snarl. The Doctor didn't wait to see what it would do next, he ran.

Back along the road and to where Rory was carrying Amy over his shoulders, struggling down the path now flanked with peering faces.

'For the second time, where have you been!' demanded Rory.

'What happened to Amy?' The Doctor rubbed his arm.

'She just fainted, look, Doctor, look at her arm!' Rory showed him. Amy had a black burn on her arm. It looked like a devil's fork.


	5. Chapter 5: Pond in Pond

**Chapter 5**

**Pond in Pond**

'Doctor, what is it?'

'Hmmm...?' The Doctor looked up from the burn 'I.. I don't know, Rory, I really don't..' he scratched his head, thoughtfully. 'We have to get to a river, she needs water, severely dehydrated by the look of things.' Musing like this, he bent close to examine the burn better.

'Doctor!' Rory said impatiently and, adjusting Amy's position on his shoulder, he staggered onward along the road.  
>'O right!' said The Doctor and scurried after him.<p>

About an hour later, and there was no sign of water, and Rory was beginning to understand how frustrating something infinitely big felt. The irritation on Amy's arm was spreading to the rest of her, and Rory would have ran, but he found when he tried, he almost fell over. The Doctor was silent, either pondering or sulking, Rory wasn't sure.

Suddenly, they rounded a corner. And there the path split into two. The Doctor stopped and looked up.

'What on Earth?' cried Rory gaping.

'We're not on Earth, Rory, remember that'.

'How is this possible?'

'Its not..' The Doctor scanned both routes, looked at the screwdriver. 'Well, apparently it is.'

'Okay, which one then?'

'Ermm..' The Doctor picked up a stone and threw it into the path to their right. It fell with a thump a few feet away. 'It looks real, at least.. But it can't be!'

After a while, of standing looking indecisive, The Doctor inhaled deeply and step towards the trail in front.

'No, wait... err...

umm...

this one...

no, that's not right...

err...

hmm-'

'O come on, Doctor! This way then!' Rory marched off down the route directly in front of them.

Presently, The Doctor caught up with him and said, rather humbly, 'Rory?'

'Yes!'

'Are you angry with me?'

'Yes, you could say that!'

'Why?'

There was a silence.

'You could have offered to help carry her!'

'Okay then, I'll carry her'

'You mean it?'

'Of course I do'

'Fine then!'

Promptly, and with some difficulty, Rory managed slide Amy onto The Doctor's shoulders. He almost buckled under the weight.

'Rassilon!, what have you been eating? Rocks?' he muttered as he staggered hither and thither all over the path, nearly falling into a tree.

Rory stood a rock a few feet away, staring. Presently, The Doctor joined him, panting, finally having managed to stabilize his weight. 'Here,' he breathed, taking his screwdriver out of his pocket, 'In case I fall on i-'

Then he saw what Rory had been gaping at.

They were standing on the edge of a low cliff. Over the path below, and in the beginnings of the trees on the left hand side, there was a pool of shining gold. It stretched on as far as the eye could see. From the right, there was a crashing noise like water on stones, but they could see nothing.

Slowly, The Doctor put Amy down and crept forward to the rippling gold surface, and dropped a rock onto its surface. There was a large splash and the spell broke! The unsettled water turned from gold to a cold blue-black.

'I wonder what sort of fish live in there..' mused The Doctor. Then he looked back up at the cliff.

'Hey, Rory!' he exclaimed 'you're not standing on a cliff! Its a meteor! Blocking the path, it probably crashed here sometime after this path was put here!' He bent down and examined the ground around the huge boulder.

'Rory?'

'Yes?'

'Drop Amy in will you?'

'What- No!'

'Rory, trust me!'

'But she's out cold, she'll drown!'

'Trust me!'

The Doctor heard the splash and the scream. Smiling, he turned around to face a drenched and bedraggled Amelia.

'Welcome back, Pond'

'Rory! did you drop me!'

'He told me to!'

While Amy fumed, The Doctor scanned her up and down, 5 times to be sure. She seemed, well, normal. The burn had gone. Her skin was pink not red, which was a good sign.

'Come along, Ponds' he said and was about to cross over the water, when he suddenly stopped 'Oh.'

'What, Doctor', Amy asked.

'Any idea how deep this pond is, Pond?'

'Errr.. quite deep I think'.

'O dear. Taller than us?'

'I think so'.

'Could we swim it?' Rory chipped in.

'I don't like the idea of going into a river without knowing however wide it is'.

'hmm...'

'We'll just have to see if we can find a crossing, won't we?' said The Doctor brightly.

And off he went along the bank.

The Doctor sauntered along, as if he were strolling down a high street. But inside, his mind was calculating. An annoying little voice in his head said What was he thinking? What sort of crossing was he expecting for a river that was probably infinitely wide? O shut up! he told himself, I never liked you anyway. The feelings mutual, it said. Wouldn't that make it a sea? said a pondering, questioning and frankly, pestering voice. Why am I even thinking about that? He asked.

Suddenly the voices stopped. There, in front of him, was the wreckage of an aeroplane.


	6. Chapter 6: The Pilot and The Doctor

**Chapter 6**

**The Pilot and The Doctor**

Not for the first time that day, The Doctor was baffled. He blinked and looked again.

It was a small 1930s cargo aircraft, cleaved in two by a tall tree. Whole branches had been hewn off in the crash, and bits of metal from the plane's outer shell lay scattered, half melted in the long-gone heat. The Doctor inched his way as far as he could to the front, where a branch had split right through the front windscreen. He peered in, and there in the dark, a shrunken cracked face leered out at him.

It was only a skull, but The Doctor jumped back a few feet in surprise. It looked as if it had been mummified, but more likely had all its water sucked from its body. Much like what he had seen in Venice. 'Dryads..' he murmured.

'We should bury them,' said Amy, 'not just leave them in the aeroplane. The Doctor jumped - he had forgotten how silently Amy could move. The Doctor had already scrambled in through the passenger door and was rummaging around in the back.

'Who was this person, Doctor, anyone you knew?'

'No, but whoever it was was had a thing about salt, whole tubs of it! Rock salt by the looks of things.'

There was a banging noise. 'OOOoh, what's this?' he wiped the dust off it.

'Hey, Ponds? Can you tell me what this is?' he said, tumbling out the back door of the plane. He was a holding some sort of pocket watch with a strange face.

'Ermm..'

'Its an aneroid barometer! You can predict the weather with it!'

'So?'

'I have a plan!'

Rory and Amy exchanged looks.

'I mean a real one! A good one!'

Rory and Amy raised an eyebrow each.

The Doctor turned around, and knelt down by the plane and began soldering with the sonic. 'Help me, will you?'

About an hour or so later, The Doctor flicked his hair out of his eyes, and stared up at the strange apparatus in front of him. It had been a plane, but the metal it had been made of had been stripped and bent round to make a new shiny monster. When they had first got inside the plane, there had been some interesting discoveries. There was a police telephone which only called one place, but what that place was The Doctor wasn't sure; the line seemed to be dead, there had been a lot of wires scattered about the floor of the cockpit, bits left over from the renovation The Doctor thought and there . It was now clear from the crude adjustments to the cockpit that the aeroplane had been hastily (and brilliantly) converted into a kind of TARDIS. There were no doors on the passenger or pilot sides and the walls were now just metal bars.

They had buried the pilot, away from the river in case of erosion. In with him they had put his leather hat and goggles and filled the grave with earth. The dryads had watched as they had filled the grave in, but did not attempt to come any closer. A few minutes later, The Doctor had looked back, and he was almost sure he saw the tree squatting by the grave move.

'Doctor?' said Amy, breaking his chain of thought, 'why _did_ we just rebuild the plane?'

'Because we, Pond, are going for a ride! You see those salt tubs in the back, I'm going to ask you and Rory to empty them out the doorway when we get to say, 50,000 feet.'

'Why?'

'Is it safe?'

'No idea', The Doctor said brightly, climbing into the pilot seat, 'hop in!'

'No way! I'm not going until you tell us exactly what you're up to!'

'Fine then! Have you ever heard of cloud seeding, Rory?'

'No?'

'They did it at the Beijong Olympics'.

'Beijing, Doctor'

'Oh yes so they did!'

'Well, we're going to do it, we're going to try rain making!'

'Have you ever flown a plane before, Doctor?,' Rory asked nervously.

'Of course I have!'

...

'Err, you have to turn the engine on'.

'Oh right!'

There was a clunking noise and some thumping. Then, making them all jump, the propeller cracked into life, spinning faster and faster, like an increasingly desperate fly inside a jar. Beside the river, the land opened out and formed a long treeless glade along the bank.

'Right!' shouted The Doctor, masterfully pulling a lever. There was a loud banging noise and with a jerk that nearly through them off their seats, the propellers roared into life.

'Ok..' The Doctor said as the plane slowly rolled forward, getting faster and faster. They turned around a slight bend, and there was the end of the clearing, coming on fast. The plane was eating up the ground, and the trees were getting close by the second!

'O, god..' said Rory bracing himself. The trees were very close now, less than a hundred metres away. Amy closed her eyes, and grabbed Rory's hand.

'Use the stick!' Rory shouted over the din of the engine. The Doctor flung the stick forward as the trees reared up in front of the plane.

'GERONIMO!'


	7. Chapter 7: The Sky Above Skies

**Chapter 7**

**The Sky Above Skies **

At the last possible moment, the plane soared back, up, up into the blackness that lurked beyond the treetops. It was a stifling melanic dark up here.

Amy shouted 'Doctor? How do you know where to go? We'll get lost up here!'.

She looked down at the forest and the mirror-path molten, nestled in the ever-shadow . The smooth waters of the pool and the meteor were aurulent, split only by the ripples. Far away, she heard the distant crash of the mighty falls, getting fainter and fainter as the plane gained height.

'Hold on, Pond!' The Doctor shouted. Then a horrible thrust shook the aircraft, chucking Rory and Amy carelessly to the end of the plane like ragdolls. Amy groaned and struggled to free herself from Rory.

'What was that?'

'We just came out of Peripheral Park. It has a forcefield'.

Then she saw a beautiful sight. The blackness was fading into a deep, dark cerulean blue. She gasped and the blue paled to a soft cyaneous colour, and suddenly they were sweeping through a high cold, breezy sky, filled with monstrous clouds of grey and white. She had almost forgotten what blue sky looked like. Below, was the planet they had wanted to go to in the first place, Feleros, a planet which was entirely hollowed out. There was a chamber where a hole running right through the middle of the planet through which you could see through to both ends, The Doctor had told them. It was a sunny moorland with rocks and crags and waterfalls crashing down. But right in the middle, on the crown of huge sweeping hill, a forest of dark shadow. She noticed where the mirrors ended. There was a beam of sunlight falling straight on the last one, by a waterfall with raged through the bows.

'Doctor?', Amy began, 'the forest is-'

'yes, yes, its bigger on the inside, Amy!'

'Doctor? Why aren't we being blown out of the plane?' Rory yelled.

'I put a forcefield around us, the metal wasn't practical! Amy, can you grab one of those crates of salt?'.

'For what?'

'The clouds here are warm. We need to sprinkle the salt on the clouds to make it rain, even though we've got out, we still need the TARDIS.' Rory picked up one and went to the doorway, 'how much do we use, Doctor?'

'Be liberal, but not gluttonous! The clouds here will be more susceptible than Earth clouds, a storm is the last thing we need'.

'Yeah, that helps..' Amy joined her husband and picked up a handful. She shook it on the clouds, nothing happened.

'Give it a moment!' The Doctor shouted. Amy took another handful and shook it evenly over the clouds, Rory joined her. The Doctor turned the plane in loops and bends, evidently having master the stick. Amy and Rory shook the salt over the skies, handful after handful.

'Woooo!' exclaimed The Doctor, twisting the plane this way and that, and the others couldn't help but join in.

'There's no more salt, Doctor', said Amy at last, gripping the bars of the doorway and leaning out. The Doctor turned the plane around and stared at the clouds.

'Doctor, its not working'

And it did appear nothing had changed.

'The clouds must be too cold', The Doctor moaned. 'I misjudged it. I'm sorry, but I don't think we'll be seeing the TARDIS ever again'. Had he been on his own, The Doctor would have happily turned around and gone back to Peripheral Park, to find the TARDIS, to search forever even if it was in vain, at least until the dryads caught up with him. But he had Rory and Amy to think about. Had he failed them?

'Look!' Amy roused him from his thoughts.

The clouds turned from whey to a glossless grey, and then to dark smoke-like hue.

In the silent darkness of Peripheral Park, a dryad sat by a dry mound of earth, earth that was almost dust. It was dying, surely, as it was, crumbling like ancient paper. Then there was a light tap and something cold hit its hand. A raindrop rolled down its hand. It soaked in immediately, healing the peeling bark. Then there was another and another. The dryad turned its head up and suddenly, thousands of droplets were falling, everywhere, anywhere! On the leafs, and the dry dead grass and the cracked stony ground. The mirrors' images blurred as the rain fell on them, smoothing the dusty surface.

Dryads appeared from behind trees, and held out their arms to the rain. From ochre to burnished gold to pale sand, to green. The bark grew back fast, cladding them in Oak and Ash, Willow and Hazel, Rowan and Birch bark. They had almost forgotten who they were. The darkness vanished, fading away, as light flooded in, and the waters and the mirrors shone like small stars.

The Doctor blinked. The forest was gone, and there stood the TARDIS about 50 feet below them. The plane dropped height considerably, with The Doctor guiding it down to earth.

'Doctor?'

'Hmm, yes?'

'Why didn't the forest take the TARDIS with it?'

'The TARDIS doesn't move unless she wants to'.

'O.'

The Doctor opened the TARDIS door and strolled inside. The others followed him.

'What will happen to the dryads?'

'Oh.. they'll be alright. I'm surprise you care, after what happened to you, Pond'. He flexed his fingers and skipped over to the console.

'Well, they didn't mean to, did they? I mean they could sense the water in my body, right?'

'How very human of you, Pond, forgiving so easily, something I wish more races would encourage. But nobody knows, no one's ever heard a dryad speak, and when they try its already too late. Its impossible to tell how they see us, or if they even consider us at all. They are very old, the dryads, so people (even time lords) don't count for much.'

'So,' said Rory, 'where are we going?'

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get any further, the telephone rang. The Doctor picked it up.

'Yes, yes, we'll be right there!'. The Doctor put the phone down.

'Who was that?'

'That was Acrethorn Orphanage. They need a doctor.'


End file.
